ISSN:
1573-1367
Keywords:
cohesion
;
coupling
;
quality
;
case study experiment
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Computer Science
Notes:
Abstract The benefits of decomposing a software system at the design stage into a collection of modules have long been recognized, especially if the activities within each module contribute to performing one single goal, and also if the modules have, as far as possible, minimal interaction with each other. In the so-called structured design approach, qualitative scales, or spectra, for cohesion and coupling capture these notions a little more rigorously and provide a means of assessing the quality of a design. In practice the ideas of cohesion and coupling are difficult to apply. A case study with a medium-sized Fortran program is described, in which 163 students were asked to categorize the cohesion and coupling of its modules. The subjective nature of the cohesion and coupling scales is exemplified by the diversity of opinions that resulted. The evidence of other empirical studies also illustrates the problem, since researchers have attempted to assess cohesion and coupling in a variety of different ways, often with quite primitive levels of discrimination. The fundamental difficulty is that there are no agreed objective measures for the quantities, nor the means to obtain any measures. Some proposals are reviewed, as well as recent developments of the ideas to cope with abstract data types.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00590439
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